


Divided We Stand

by littlesparklight (sparklight)



Category: Transformers (Dreamwave Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Archived From Tumblr, Archived From littlesparklight Blog, Cybertron, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Meta Essay, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 10:43:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16993536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/littlesparklight
Summary: Meta/headcanon around those continuities (fanon or canon) where Cybertron's population is divided into military and civilian codelines and what that means - for general culture, the factions in the war, etc.(First chapter deals with thoughts about the fact that the factions are mostly split between military and civilian and what that might mean for them in how they deal with the stresses of war, using weapons, and similar things. They're taken from a couple different posts made at different times, so some of the sections will sound kind of similar with different phrasing or in-depth thought. Some minimal edits to make things flow a little better as a single post here.)





	1. The Effects of War

Thoughts about continuities that have an explicit/in-universe minitary/civilian model split in the population (which is _mostly_ but not completely obviously mirrored by the faction split), not in “warcrimes” or “gritty reality morality” ways. More like :

-Military cybertronians/Decepticons having naturalised/spark-deep coding/programming/whatever that makes them better able to deal with war, the effects of war, and similar. Especially when it lasts long. Additionally they probably have similar coding/programming to deal with the transition from war -> no war, since such situations would obviously happen (and if you make part of your population into professional soldiers it'd be silly to not give them a way to at least handle the initial transition reasonably, even if they get antsy in long periods of peace).

-Conversely, civilian cybertronians/Autobots _lack_ those things, since they're not supposed to _need_ to fight. They obviously can, but they'd be far less suited/ _built_ for it. So they have to deal with those things without the additional help, as well as learning to handle weapons, where none of them come "natural" - something the military/Decepticons probably have some level of naturalised too (probably/especially for some sort of weapons, for some military ones, like Seekers and their arm cannons).

 So you get things like "your aim's gone to shit, did you skip target practice?" and a Decepticon wouldn't NEED to do target practice to keep anything up, just to get BETTER (like, even their beginner, shitty aim is far better than what an Autobot would start out with... or might be the best some Autobots ever achieve, and that's WITH constant target practice).

or for a more serious angle; Autobots dealing with the mental stresses war and long-lasting war inflicts, with PTSD and such... and again, it's not something the average Decepticon ever would have or need to worry about (some would probably still be affected, though! but not to the same extent that Autobots do, because given that they're SUPPOSED to be military, they'd obviously have programming to help).

or things like military routines being hard to uphold in Autobot bases and such, because while routines and chain of command isn't something odd to Autobots, the military structure is alien.

Just... stuff like that. I’m gonna try in my own fics where it fits, but yeah, that’s what I’d like to see. A divide that won’t disappear even if the war goes on millions of years and acknowledging that it’s just harder for the Autobots to just... keep up. To stall and hinder and stop, and actually winning would be even harder.

 

Like, consider this; it means the Decepticons have programming or similar to deal with war, not just combat and weapons, but the effects of being in a war (a long or short one), and post-war effects as well, at least to _some_ degree.  
They probably don't need to really "learn" weapons either, not in the usual sense.

And then you have the Autobots/civilians; they don't have those programs/etc. They need to learn and train with every weapon they pick up, they don't have ways to deal with being in a war in the same way, and especially not long-lasting ones (never mind post-war, when things should be back to "normal"...)

I just imagine that some quirks are exaggerated thanks to the strain of dealing with this, even if they might not be aware of it (not quite PTSD, since that's not what it is, but in a way similar?).

So take Bumblebee for example; he feels inferior and like he's not as good as his peers after _millions of years_ of war, and despite being on what's technically a crack team (the Ark mission) - it's due to the war situation aggravating a slight tendency of inferiority complex/insecurity.

Or Cliffjumper; I hardly think he was some amazingly pleasant person pre-war, he's probably always been crabby and suspicious and with trust issues, but the war excerbates that into the sort of Decepticon-and-traitor focused paranoia you see.

Or Mirage... nothing's really changed/been exaggerated personality-wise, but that's because he's clinging _so very hard_ to the pretense that he's not as involved in the war, the homesickness of pre-war society, and he's clinging to it past logic, but doing anything else... well.

So yeah... thoughts.

 

Another thought along the military/civilian divide and the war...

Removing the Decepticons' element of surprise and that the Autobots had to  scrape together a defense from scattered resources... it probably took them very look to get the first victory at all, not because of those things, but because they needed to _catch up_ to the Decepticons, combat knowledge/use-wise.

As in; any single given Decepticon _who is a military mech_ will have basic knowledge to draw from (consciously or not), regardless of whether they have been involved in actual combat before or participated in the "training" the secret gladiator fights were (or the not-so-secret ones, for the legal side). Gladiator combat, even life-and-death such, is, of course, not _war combat_ , but it would also help, but that's basically just extra when you're _already_ drawing from a pool of knowledge.

So, whereas the majority-civilian Autobots are scrabbling to just learn a single weapon, the one in their hands right now, learning how it works, to aim it and get whatever equivalent of muscle memory that they have, the majority-military Decepticons can focus on honing skills and knowledge they already have. 

A gun? Well, learn one and they can probably extrapolate into a wider pool, same with bladed weapons.  
Patrol and keeping watch? Any civilian wouldn't know what to look for, would have to learn it from scratch - the military mechs probably know, subconsciously, what they're looking for, and only need to be made more aware/train that basic knowledge up.  
Same with such things as combat maneuvers and similar things, though on the other hand the Autobots would probably be very good at at least locating, making use of and prioritising resources, and even planning a supply chain wouldn't be too strange, since it's basically managing a flow of resources (which merchants do, and they'd have those among them).

The civilians probably don't just need to learn combat and weapons from scratch, and be on the targeting range to learn to aim and better it, but have to continuously _keep up with it_ to even just _keep_ this knowledge, less it start to be relegated in importance and wiped. It's not what they're _for_ after all, right?  
Since, really, any combat response that'd involve the whole planet "should" merely be something disastrous like Unicron, or maybe an invasion - things over hopefully soon, not a thousand or million years long civil war.

Any civilian among the Decepticons can simply concentrate on surviving each and every battle they're in, because on a macro-level, they can't tip the balance of the overwhelming combat-oriented Decepticons, who, by that very same token, simply soaks up civilian-related "incompetence".  
Military among the Autobots, however, are just not _many enough_ to bring up the knowledge and skill level to tip the balance in any perceivable way, so their knowledge and skill only help on an individual (or squad) level, for themselves and those directly working with them.

Relatedly, I imagine civilians among the Decepticons who have blue optics soon change to red, since, given the programming, the blue gets focused on as a feature of "the enemy" as that's what the majority of Autobots sport. Other optics colours like yellow, green or violet don't get the same response.  
Among the Autobots, military mechs probably don't need to change by rote - there's no such categorical negative response to red, even if there'd obviously be more or less instense suspicion, so it's more a personal choice (Warpath, maybe, having changed, whereas Bluestreak for whatever reason has not).


	2. The Cultural Divide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some limited headcanon on cultural differences, this specific one about popular culture/visual or text media (stories, basically. Movies or books.).

Read this thing that made me think of media (stories either audio or written, movies, etc) differences in realities where there's a military/civilian divide in the population.

So, to start, civilian (Autobot, if you will, when the war starts) books/movies/etc are very much about interpersonal "action" - things are often solved or action is often done by talking/knowledge/blackmail/etc - AND if there's action? It's of the overblown, completely fantasised version of those fun/silly Kung Fu movies or like guns in like Men in Black (like that the tiny one that shoots a really powerful shot).  
In comparison, military ones are like, no matter the genre of the movie, there will be fighting involved - both from some vague prejudice that "they like this, that's what they want" AND because they DO want that - romance? COMBAT SCENE IN SOME WAY (maybe the lovers teaming up and fighting together, or finding they DO work well together after having a lot of clashing personally and that's HOW they get together) horror? Fighting. Actual action? LOTS OF IT - and it's all very, very realistic.

 

Civilian movies with action are usually treated as (bad) comedy by military mechs (and you usually don't admit you like those movies, unless everybody is in agreement over how terrible (and funny) they are), and enjoyed more or less clandestinely, since it's not like (pre-war anyway) there wouldn't be ways to get whatever movie you wanted regardless of your general programming - it'd just be more or less on the down-low, mostly due social censure (or enthusiasm, if you have friends that like the same).  
The same would obviously go for civilians who like the different take military-aimed movies take, which might be an enjoyment of the directness of the characters' interaction (even if there's misunderstandings/intrigue), since, even if military mechs aren't involved in a war RIGHT THIS MOMENT, they probably live with a vague background awareness of that things can "go" at any point, so who the heck has time to wait around for a complicated mess of interpersonal plots?

Because I don't really think military movies would have less interpersonal tension (they're people too), it's just far more focus on actually having one or several fight scenes somewhere in the movie.  
It might be as low-key as maybe a half-hour (or _more_ ) long, EXTREMELY DETAILED scene of a sniper assassin setting up and then taking the shot (whether they succeed or fail would of course depend on the role of the assassin and the movie and the overall plot). Just loving detail of every step, of the weapon being set in place, etc.  
    Civilian mechs would obviously find that EXTREMELY BORING, and obviously, while not all military mechs would be appreciative of it, more of them would be _invested_ in it.

Same thing would go for like, either a workplace drama (murder mystery? slice-of-life? romance? Doesn't matter.) or just loose scenes in a movie where a civilian mech's knowledge/function/whatever would come into play; loving attention to HOW their knowledge will help, the application of it, etc (probably juxtaposed against whatever pressure to keep tension going).  
   And like with the other side of things, not every civilian might appreciate the minute detail, but the majority would like the show of how the protagonist's - or side character's! - skill/etc help the plot/someone else in the movie  
    :V Meanwhile, military mechs are probably bored to tears of such a tension-less, BORING MUNDANE scene omg how is this interesting go back to the real action!!!

 Like, for example, a half-hour pause in a tense chase scene in some movie where a bridge engineer gets to sabotage/repair a bridge to help the main characters (or stop them!) and while the civilians would be invested in both the knowledge displayed/how it's used AND the fight against time, the military mechs are like "WHAT THE HECK WHY IS THIS HERE, WHY IS THIS TAKING SUCH TIME JUST BLOW IT UP!!"

Not because they wouldn't be able appreciate the tension, but because the FOCUS is on something they find UTTERLY BORING.  
    Civilians would probably wince over the amount of collateral damage military movies have, because "who's going to FIX THAT UP!!!" and the military mechs are just caught up in the lovely display of pyrotechnics and "look at how expertly he took advantage of the building's layout to make the most of the bomb" etc.

:V so yeah, random bit of headcanon burble


	3. A Question of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An answer to a headcanon question of how I thought about any possible differences in how military/civilian cybertronians flirted and if there were any differences between them when it came to being polyamorous/monogamous.

Well, I don't usually imagine any difference between them (faction-wise or pre-war), so it's all depending on the individual, but I guess I could actually add on to that!  
Like, since they usually seem to not be aware of the division (or the division is not implement in any noticeable way "as intended", in any given continuity where the divide is used), any pressure one way or the other would be on a societal scale, affecting _both_ populations equally. I'm not sure there's really any advantage (or disadvantage) for inbuilt macro-structural preferences in the romantic sense between military and civilian, so it'd probably depend on what the pre-war society favoured, really!  
(And even then it'd probably vary depending on the location.)

And gosh, I'm not good at imagining flirting, but to take a stab at it; regardless of being aware of any programming differences, I could definitely see military mechs automatically going for weapons.   
And I don't necessarily mean showing off your weapon in the targeting range (or asking the object of your attention to do the same), even if that could work too, but _describing_ it. As a metaphor for their own skill in the berth ( ;D) or perhaps comparing the one their flirting with to their weapon, and how beautiful and effective (and devastating) it is.

And for some reason my brain goes to "civilians would home in on 'skill'" as in their skills or knowledge in one area translating into ahem, others, or said skill alone being brought up as attractive or a point for flirting  
Which means that the weapon angle is going to go completely (or maybe not) over a civilian's helm, or at least be seen as not sexy at all (or claimed to be, anyway). What _might_ happen after the war has been going on for a while, though, would be that, the skill in which you handle a weapon might be an additional angle to flirt over, which would then turn it into a commonality/point of similarity and both using the same thing to flirt with, with the militaries (the Decepticons, though not JUST, since there are definitely some military mechs among the Autobots too).


End file.
